


Just Clean, No Mister (There Were Copyright Issues)

by PresquePommes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Actual Fanboy Eren, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Conspiracy Theories, INDEFINITE HIATUS, M/M, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1394407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresquePommes/pseuds/PresquePommes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Jaeger isn't just a fanboy, he's the fanboy- he knows everything there is to know about the masked vigilante they call "Clean" and he'll fight you if you call the man a menace- he's done it before, after all. He's got a decade's worth of hero worship plastered on his bedroom walls for the world to see, and he has no intention of apologizing for that.</p><p>Fortunately or unfortunately, meeting your heroes isn't always what you expect it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [synstruck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/synstruck/gifts), [Yuu_chi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/gifts).



> I need to learn how to stop turning to my friends and going "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if-"

“I hate the moniker, personally- given the opportunity, I’d get rid of it entirely,” a low voice said to his left. “But there comes a point when you just have to accept that it’s caught on and make the best of that.”

It was a woman’s voice that answered. “So you’ve really gone through with it, then? The merchandising potential is amazing, of course, and I know the court ruled it dissimilar enough to apply for a trademark, but… the man himself, Erwin.”

The man chuckled, and he found himself glancing over surreptitiously, trying to spy more of him than expensive-looking shoes and neatly pressed slacks without turning his head.

“He won’t do anything, I can guarantee you that- he’d have to out himself. He’s less of a mad dog than you’re inclined to think he is.”

He glanced at him again, working his lower lip between his teeth.

He was supposed to be refilling the cat food in this aisle.

He was still in his probationary period of employment.

He had to behave- had to focus, had to _work_.

But he’d _tuned in_ , and he couldn’t tune out.

“Are you talking about Clean?” he asked instead, turning his face to meet the surprised gaze of the man in the grey slacks.

Eren Jaeger had a problem.

He liked to argue that it wasn’t a problem, but his inability to recognize the problem _was_ the problem.

Many people had strange fixations- Eren had an obsession.

Eren knew everything a civilian could know about the masked vigilante they called _Clean_.

He knew that the man had been active for two years preceding his infamous run-in with the Trash Bandits- he knew that the gang, now defunct, had a reputation for replacing the precious valuables they stole from their victim’s homes with half-rotten garbage.

He’d been eight when he had first seen the grainy video of the man who would become his childhood hero beating a member of the Trash Bandits with a mop handle. He’d been listening when the teenage siblings of his classmates started jokingly referring to him as _Mister Clean_.

He still had a copy of the first run of the local newspaper that had referred to him as just Clean- they’d dropped the “Mister” for copyright reasons. He had it framed on his bedroom wall.

He knew the time, place, and details of every foiled crime Clean was confirmed to be involved in, and about twice as many he was rumoured to have been seen interrupting.

Eren Jaeger was the ultimate Clean fanboy, and it had cost him jobs, lost him friendships, and earned him more than one bloodied nose.

He stared, unblinking and unafraid, up from where he was squatting on the floor, up into the blue eyes of the man who’d been talking about Clean with such familiarity, and wondered vaguely if he was going to get himself fired again.

“I am,” the man answered, smiling a little. He had a broad, classically handsome sort of face, the kind that evoked images of old detective novels and golden age comic books, and Eren found the shallowness of his smile interesting.

“You said something about merchandise,” Eren pointed out. He wasn’t good at subtle, so he didn’t bother with it.

The man’s amused look told him his manager wasn’t about to receive a complaint about him just yet. “I did. And who might you be?”

“Eren. I work here. Who’s asking?”

 The man cocked a bright eye at him, heavy eyebrows rising incrementally. “Erwin Smith, editor-in-chief of _The Daily Caller_. Are you a fan of our Clean, Eren?”

The way he said _our Clean_ made Eren’s skin itch unpleasantly. “I’m a fan of Clean, but last I checked he didn’t belong to anyone,” he murmured, knowing he was pushing his luck and almost wishing he cared enough to stop.

Erwin looked pleased, but there was something a little sinister in his tone. “I think you might be surprised,” he said pleasantly. “How long have you worked here, Eren? I come here often, but I haven’t seen your face before. I’d remember you if I had.”

 _‘Here it comes,’_ Eren thought, _‘this is where he asks for my manager and gets me fired.’_ The resentment and self-loathing kicked in belatedly. He wondered if he should apologize and then felt angry for wondering. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had nothing to apologize for. “This is my fifth shift,” he muttered.

Erwin hummed. “You don’t seem like someone who would be satisfied with such unstimulating work, Eren.”

Eren looked at him warily. He hadn’t asked for his manager, which was a good sign, but the way he had phrased that sentence made him nervous.

No part of him expected what Erwin said next.

“How would you like to be the first to know any stories on Clean that come into my newspaper, Eren?”

***

And that was how he found himself doing coffee and lunch runs for the staff of _The Daily Caller_.

The pay was garbage- less than garbage, even- but Eren didn’t care. He filled his stomach with the leftovers given to him by pitying staff members and gorged his mind on whispers.

He listened intently, obsessively, for any news. More than once, he found himself doing janitorial work outside of his job description because he was so attuned to a single word of many meanings, most of them mundane.

For the first time since he was seventeen, the first time in more than two years, he made it past the probationary period, successfully remaining employed in one location for three months consecutively.

Armin was ecstatic and suggested that maybe he’d finally found his calling in the field of journalism. Mikasa stopped bombarding him with news of employment opportunities, which he assumed meant she no longer viewed his coming home unemployed as something to be expected.

Halfway through his fourth month, Erwin called him into his office.

“You’ve proven yourself to be hardworking, consistent, and eager, Eren,” he’d said, all businesslike words leaking through an enigmatic smile. “I think you’re ready for some bigger responsibilities.”

***

And that was how he found himself fetching Erwin Smith’s dry cleaning and delivering it home for him two to three times a week.

Erwin had long since revealed himself to be something of an oddity- he’d beckon Eren over and glance down at his watch before handing him his house key and saying, “It seems late enough to be safe- my laundry closes in fifteen minutes. Please be prompt.”

Six months into his employment under _The Daily Caller_ ’s editor-in-chief, Eren Jaeger discovered exactly _why_ his timing was so important.

Two and a half months after his first time picking up Erwin’s dry cleaning, Eren Jaeger opened the door to Erwin’s apartment and found a man bleeding from a shoulder wound on the sofa.

Even without the mask, he knew him at a glance.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll just write a couple chapters of cute hero AU, I said. Just some obsessive fanboy Eren and grumpy vigilante Levi, I said. It doesn't have to be complicated, hell, it doesn't even need a real plot, I said.
> 
> I'm so, so sorry.

He dropped Erwin’s dry cleaning without a second thought.

“Did you get stabbed?” he demanded.

The man on the couch, who was _unquestionably_ the same man whose lithe physique he had spent years studying- a suspicion made fact by the distinctive mobility gear resting on the floor by the coffee table, one with a bloody handprint smeared on the release mechanism- was looking at him sidelong, expression unreadable, one hand pressed hard into the fast-darkening towel against his shoulder.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked rudely. His free hand twitched towards his hip.

Eren recognized, with a weird mixture of excitement and apprehension, that he was thinking of reaching for his expandable baton.

“I work for Erwin,” he assured him firmly, raising his palms to show he wasn’t carrying anything strange and shuffling forward to let the apartment door swing shut behind him. “Let me see your injury,” he said, and flinched internally when he heard his father’s inflection escape his lips.

Clean eyed him warily but peeled the towel away from his wound obligingly. “You don’t look old enough to be a fucking doctor, brat.”

“My father is a doctor,” he murmured, hissing with concern as he stepped close enough to get a better look. “That’s going to need stitches. What kind of knife is that from? It looks more like a tear than a cut.”

The man on the couch grunted. “That’s because it is a tear- some fucker got me with a bit of scrap metal coming down a fire escape. It’s too early in the night for this shit.”

It really was. Eren glanced at the clock by the television. It wasn’t even ten in the evening.

He sighed, shoving aside his urge to babble like a moron for later indulgence. “We’re going to have to clean that out,” he told Clean professionally, “do you have your tetanus shots?”

Clean looked at him, lips narrowed and eyelids heavy. If Eren had to describe his expression, he’d call it ‘decidedly unimpressed.’

“Have you seen what I do for a living?” the man snapped, “Yes, I have my fucking tetanus shots.” He jerked his head towards the hallway. “Erwin keeps a first aid kit in the bathroom. Hurry the hell up before I bleed out.”

Eren almost tripped over himself hurrying to oblige, and Clean’s eyes were narrowed with suspicion by the time he got back. Even as he hissed quietly with pain at having the tear in his flesh swabbed with peroxide, his eyes never left Eren’s face, and Eren never lost the feeling the was being scrutinized.

Clean was silent until Eren had already fumbled out the needle and threaded it.

“Your father taught you how to stitch a knife wound closed?”

His sharp tone made Eren nervous.

He considered lying but opted for the truth.

“No,” he admitted, “that was, um, something I picked up on my own.”

He could _feel_ Clean’s stare as he pressed the tip of the needle against his skin. “Brace yourself.”

The man barked a curse. “Who got stabbed?” he bit out.

He realized abruptly that he was distracting himself with what had to be the most uncomfortable small talk Eren had ever had the dubious pleasure of being expected to provide. It was a weird thing to learn about his childhood hero.

“I did,” he mumbled, making a point of not meeting the man’s eyes as he stitched his wound closed as quickly and efficiently as he felt able.

“How’d you get yourself stabbed?”

He suddenly felt like he should have lied. “By a teenager with a box cutter?” he joked. The answering silence told him that levity would was not the answer expected of him. “Trying to be a hero.”

The weight of Clean’s stare on the side of his face told him something else new about his hero- the man had the ability to communicate a sense of crushing, pseudo-parental disapproval without ever saying a word.

“My fault, is it?”

Eren shifted uncomfortable. “I was young and kind of stupid. And I didn’t want my mom to find out. So my fault.”

Clean clicked his tongue against his teeth in a show of audible distaste. “How young are we talking here?”

He finished tying off the last stitch and reached for the scissors he’d left resting on the first aid kit again, grateful that it gave him an excuse to turn away from the man’s imposing gaze.

“Nine.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but only for a second.

“I’m sorry, what?”

He looked up at Clean, surprised to find that the man looked openly bewildered.

The bewilderment quickly faded into suspicion and then mild hostility. “How old are you now?”

“…Nineteen.”

His eyes seemed dark, shadowed by his long eyelashes and heavy eyelids, but Eren realized abruptly and with some interest that they were an oddly colourless grey, each light ash iris punctuated by a multitude of dark striations that feathered outwards from its pupil like a spider’s web of cracks around a bullet hole into the cloudy window of a darkened car.

They looked markedly displeased.

“You’re that shitty fanboy of an assistant, aren’t you?” he accused roughly, and Eren blinked.

“You heard about me?”

Clean scowled. “Erwin likes to remind me that I’m the role model of fuckups everywhere whenever he can.”

He barely noticed that he’d just been called a fuckup, too lost in the novelty of being a known entity to the hero of his childhood.

All at once, his moment of marvel came to an end with Clean’s eyes leaving his face and the sound of a door clicking shut somewhere behind him.

“He’s been fired from jobs defending your honour before, have I told you that?” a familiar voice interjected smoothly. “And now you’ve finally met. I knew it’d happen eventually- Eren’s first aid skills are coming as a pleasant surprise, though.”

Eren glanced over his shoulder at Erwin.

Abruptly, the reality of the situation crashed in around him.

 _“Wait,”_ he started, eyes flickering back and forth, “then you- and you? You’re…?”

Clean clicked his tongue against his teeth again. “You’re not exactly sharp, are you, brat?”

“Levi, be nice.”

The name sounded strange and heavy on his tongue. “Levi?” he echoed automatically, puzzled. Clean looked at him with undisguised disgust.

“Did you think my name really was- you did, didn’t you?”

“Levi,” he said again, taking in his hooded eyelids and high cheekbones and oddly dainty nose more fully as he tried to attach the name to them.

Levi started to look a little amused. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

He stuck out a hand in greeting, forgetting entirely about the blood still drying on his fingers and doing nothing to combat the big, stupid grin spreading across his face. “I’m Eren.”

Levi just looked at his hand and snorted.

“I figured that out a while ago, kid. You mind wrapping my shoulder before you get too distracted by the fulfilment of your weirdass hero worship fantasy?”

Eren looked at Levi’s stitched but still exposed wound and yelped apologetically.

“Well,” Erwin said pleasantly, “I see we’re all off to a great start.”

                                                                                                    ***

In the days that would follow, Eren discovered that he had known nothing about the masked vigilante they called Clean, really.

He hadn’t known that Clean’s real name was Levi, no last name offered, a fact that almost made it more mysterious and thrilling than the moniker. He didn’t even know if it was his first or last.

He hadn’t known that Levi lived in Erwin’s apartment, sleeping by day and engaging in acts of dashing heroism by night.

He hadn’t known that Levi was _actually_ just as fastidiously hygienic as they’d made him out to be after the Trash Bandits incident. They- everyone on the forums Eren had spent years frequenting, faceless folks amongst whom he’d made a reputation for fridge brilliance and confrontational dogmatism- had assumed that his meticulous behaviour was a follow-up, an acknowledgement of the moniker, but the truth was that they’d simply assigned him a title that was infinitely more appropriate than they had ever realized.

He hadn’t known a lot of things about his hero.

Erwin had spent most of the first evening smiling enigmatically at him as he dashed around, fetching pillows and painkillers and making fresh cups of tea with a near-precognitive readiness he’d never thought he’d thank that brief and disagreeable stint at Mikasa’s university coffee shop for, desperate to earn himself a smile, a nod, hell, an approving _anything_.

“I’ll admit I expected you to have a stronger reaction to Levi’s… ah, _stature_ , Eren,” Erwin had ventured curiously, causing Eren to pause in the midst of his overeager pillow fluffing. The silence had stretched on between them for long enough to make his confusion clear, he supposed. “He’s shorter than you’d thought, isn’t he?”

Eren had looked down at Levi where he was lingering by the couch, rolling his injured shoulder gingerly to test the limits of his bandaging. The top of the man’s- peculiarly velvety-looking where it was shaved, he’d noted belatedly, fine but thick where it was not- head of black hair only reached somewhere between his chin and his nose.

“Oh, I guess so,” he’d acknowledged, a bit puzzled as to why that mattered. “Anyway, I heard you once made a man drink bleach for flashing a group of middle school students,” he said eagerly.

Levi’d just curled his lip and asked him if he really thought he’d stoop to so wasteful and grotesque a punishment- Eren had gotten, strangely enough, an inexplicably strong impression that he was referring to the misuse of the bleach rather than the fate of the man drinking it- but his mild antagonism had seemed to fade into something closer to ambivalence or simple apathy, so he considered it a win, nonetheless.

***

“He’s unexpectedly useful, isn’t he?”

“The answer is no, Erwin.”

Eren hesitated in the living room, Erwin’s dry cleaning slung over one arm and a bag of groceries- _I’m out of eggs, and Levi would like some fresh cilantro, if I’m interpreting his complaints about my dried herb selection correctly_ , the text had read- cradled in the other, surprised to hear Levi’s voice filtering out of the kitchen.

It was the seventh day of their acquaintance, and Levi had healed enough to be allowed back out onto the streets- Eren had been mulling over the prospect since the day before, torn disconcertingly between feelings of excitement and disappointment.

He had not expected to find Levi still home- it was rare that a day went by without some rumour of Clean’s distinctively sanitary fight on crime. It suddenly occurred to Eren that those rumours may have stemmed from the actions of inspired pretenders like he himself had once been- though not eight and nine-year-old ones, he hoped.

“No?”

Erwin’s tone sounded odd, like it was coming out of a smiling mouth, but it came out a little more crooked than fondness, a little less sincere than mirth. _‘Teasing,’_ Eren identified after a moment, _‘he’s teasing him.’_

“No, Erwin, I will not be responsible for some shitty brat getting himself killed just because you think it’d be cute to pull some _Batman and Robin_ horseshit.”

He chewed him lip uncertainly, shifting the carton of eggs and pungent herbs under his arm and wincing when the bag rustled.

“I was thinking something a little more along the lines of Dick Grayson than Jason Todd, Levi.”

Eren sighed and shuffled into the kitchen quietly on socked feet. “Y’know, four or five years ago, I would’ve fought you to the ends of the earth for the chance to get myself beaten to death by the Joker,” he admitted, setting down the eggs on the counter by the sink with a weary sigh.

Levi looked startled by his appearance.

Erwin did not. As someone who’d spent a decade of his life deconstructing the meanings behind what little glimpses of those behaviours and mannerisms of a controversial public hero he was allowed, Eren had a great deal of experience with scrutinizing the hidden motivations of others, and he already had a number of suspicions about that.

“Anyway,” he added, “I’m not interested in being Robin.” He sighed again, shifting the dry cleaning bag into his free arm. His elbow had begun to stiffen from lack of movement. “Not even if I end up getting to be Nightwing.”

Levi jabbed a thumb towards him with an approving grunt. “See? Even the shittiest fanboy you managed to get on your payroll knows better than to get himself fucked up by street thugs in the name of justice.”

“Not really,” he confessed, interrupting whatever it was Levi had been gearing up to follow that with. “It’s more that if I get myself killed, my sister’ll hunt down whoever killed me and blow this whole thing wide open. She’s like that.” He let his eyes slide away from Levi’s face, a little embarrassed. “I’m just not selfish enough to screw up other people’s lives just because I think something sounds like a cool idea anymore, I guess. Mostly.” He shrugged his shoulders in mock nonchalance. “Don’t, uh, don’t quote me on that.”

He could hear Erwin’s smile. “Your sister sounds like a very strong young woman.”

Eren grimaced, scratching at his ear with his free hand and wincing when his elbow popped. “You have no idea. When we were ten, she told my mom that I wanted to be an independent crime fighter when I got old enough and nearly got me grounded for life.” He smiled a little at the memory, quashing the sour aftertaste that always followed it.

“What, and you didn’t? What changed your mom’s mind?”

Levi looked bored, but his words were too careful to be genuinely uninterested.

The sourness of old anger and pain resurfaced with a vengeance. “Dying,” he muttered bitterly, staring down at the dry cleaning tag where it lay on the swell of fabric slung over his arm without seeing the words on it. “We were living in Shiganshina when _The Grand Atom_ -” He licked his lips and swallowed sudden dryness down a burning throat. “When the plant had a meltdown.”

The ensuing silence was as fragile as sugar glass.

“When Adam Grande went nuclear, you mean,” Levi broke in quietly. “You know something about what happened to the old breed of supers, don’t you?”

Eren felt his lips twist away from his teeth and recognized the movement as being just as involuntary and ugly as the gathering eyebrows and loosely quivering lips of someone who was crying. “Legally I am required to insist that you do not attempt to alter my memories of or wilfully misrepresent to others my experiences in regards to those events that led to the destruction of my childhood home, up to and including any discussion of my mother’s cause of death. Officially, Carla Jaeger’s passing is documented as having been the result of catastrophic injuries sustained during the collapse of my family home, the breakdown of which was, in turn, caused by the initial collapse of a portion of the building’s foundation due to a previously undetected structural fault. These events were and continue to be unrelated to those that were occurring at _Shiganshina Nuclear_ at the time, and any perceived correlation between the two is entirely coincidental.”

“Eren-”

“Doctor Adam Grande, known to the public and law enforcement officials as _The Grand Atom_ , was not the victim of a terrorist attack engineered to trigger his innate superhuman abilities, nor is Grande listed as being amongst the victims of the accident at _Shiganshina Nuclear_. There are no terrorist groups dedicated to the weaponization of super-abled individuals, nor is there an ongoing conspiracy to convince the public of their nonexistence,” he recited mechanically, meeting Levi’s widened eyes without blinking. “I, Eren Jaeger, acknowledge and confirm that I was no older than ten at the time of the _Shiganshina Nuclear_ incident and would like it to be known to those whom it may now concern that I was officially diagnosed by qualified medical professionals as having sustained severe emotional and psychological trauma as a result of the concurrent but unrelated events that led to the death of my mother, Carla Jaeger. In the months that followed, it was determined that my insistence upon recalling a vastly different account of events than that which was given by others was symptomatic of my young age and delicate mental state at the time.” A deep breath. “I, Eren Jaeger, acknowledge and confirm that the coping mechanism I was observed by experienced professionals as manifesting was correctly identified as a form of aggressive self-delusion caused by the ongoing stress of having been abandoned by my father, Doctor Grisha Jaeger, who could not be contacted or located following the event and is now considered by law enforcement officials to be a missing person. Though I have been successfully treated for my trauma and am now considered free of delusional tendencies, I am obliged to remind others that my experiences with mental illness may have rendered my recollection of events unreliable, and request that you do not indulge or encourage any surviving misconceptions you may encounter while conversing with me on the subject.”

Levi looked shell-shocked, eyes wide and face blank. Even Erwin’s unflappable veneer had cracked, giving way to something unreadable.

He wished he could find that more satisfying, but the too-familiar act of recitation left him feeling blank and robotic at best, vaguely nauseous and utterly exhausted at worst.

He was leaning towards the former. Today was a pretty okay day.

He searched Levi’s eyes for a response absentmindedly. His pupils were dark pinpricks in a sea of cracked glass.

“Furthermore,” he continued, sagging against the counter and staring somewhere to left of Levi’s head, “in the interests of maintaining my current state of psychological wellbeing and ensuring the continuing safety of myself and those who surround me, I officially concede to the following: if I should be found recounting the above events in an untrue or fantastical manner with or without the immediate expectation of being observed, I am thereby forfeiting not only my right to personal autonomy, but that of two other persons in my circle of close personal acquaintance, and am once again a ward of the state. I, Eren Jaeger, acknowledge and confirm that I consent to this agreement on November second of the stated year, following three years and six months spent in state care. I have consented to my release from state care under the concession that I be released alongside Mikasa Ackerman, fourteen years of age at the time of my signing, and Armin Arlert, thirteen years of age at the time of my signing. The conditions of this concession are as follows: if I should forfeit my right to personal autonomy and return, for any reason, to being a ward of the state, so too will they, regardless of their individual circumstances. Miss Ackerman and Mister Arlert have both provided their express consent to the conditions of this concession in writing and are expected to comply with it should the occasion arise.”

He exhaled unsteadily, throwing Erwin’s dry cleaning on the kitchen table in a fit of listless anger.

“You want to know what happened to the supers?” he asked Levi bitingly, spreading and lifting his hands in a gesture of mock ignorance. “Nothing.”

The sickness rushed into his head like vomit into a mouth.

“Nothing happened to the supers. Nothing happened to Grande. I have a dead mother and daddy issues and am therefore not to be trusted.”

He smiled, and judging by Erwin’s look of interest and the sudden wariness in Levi’s stance, it looked just insane as it felt.

“I don’t want to talk,” he enunciated carefully, “about the supers. Okay?”

“Okay,” Erwin confirmed, eyes flickering over to where Levi was standing beside him.

Levi looked at him for a long moment without saying a word.

“I don’t normally condone drinking away your problems,” he said suddenly, “but you look like you could really use a drink right now.”

Eren closed his eyes and laughed, locked knees sagging with relief.

“Oh my god, you have _no_ idea.”

Later, when Levi smacked him over the head for sneaking a sip of his gin, he felt the last of the tension his confession had brought drain from his muscles, leaving him boneless and exhausted.

 _‘I’m really glad you don’t pity me,’_ he thought, mouthing the words absentmindedly, but before he could repeat them audibly or even respond to Levi’s inquisitive grunt with more than a lazy smile, he had already fallen asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your childhood hero is a fucking dork, Eren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where this characterization of Levi came from. 
> 
> But it makes me laugh, so I'm going with it.

Eren woke up on Erwin’s couch already cringing at the possibility that Mikasa or Armin had tried to contact him and received no response.

He was the troublesome one of their trio and he knew it.

The apartment seemed strange and quiet, painted in different tones than he’d become accustomed to.

Where the yellow glow of incandescent lighting had imbued the rich earth tones of Erwin’s tasteful wood floors and leather furniture with warmth, the blue light of morning washed them out, turning the living room into a still and breathless landscape of half-lit shapes and long, unfamiliar shadows.

He swung his legs off of the couch with a stifled grunt, one of his knees popping like a gunshot in the silence when he stood, and only registered the weight of a blanket over him when it started to slide to the floor. He grabbed it instinctually, fingering the coarse fabric with a sluggish feeling of confusion- it didn’t feel like something a blanket would be made of- and squinted at it.

His distracted mind took a moment to identify the strange folds of fabric in it as sleeves, but when it did, it went from a mysterious lump of heavy cloth in his hands to an immediately recognizable object.

The heat rose, unbidden, in his cheeks.

He knew they had blankets in the apartment- Erwin kept one folded neatly on an armchair for the days when Levi came in too exhausted to make it to his room.

He suspected they were indulging his- evolving but embarrassingly undiminished- adoration of Levi’s heroic alter ego. The thought made him feel like a little kid just old enough to recognize when he was being humoured by an adult.

He still lifted Clean’s distinctive cloak to his face and inhaled, if only after he’d glanced around enough to reassure himself that neither Erwin nor- god help him- Levi were around to witness him doing it.

It smelled like laundry detergent and the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke. He dimly recalled Levi complaining about never being able to get the smell out and smiled.

He reminded himself that it was probably Erwin who had draped it over him after he’d fallen asleep- his inner Armin thought so, at least, and it was usually right- to distract himself from the something in his gut that felt a little odd at the thought that Levi had been the one to do it.

He told himself quite firmly that the lightness in his head and the shakiness of his knees was the result of never having consumed alcohol before.

He buried his face in Clean’s cloak for a moment, ignoring the roughness of the fabric, and felt his stomach swoop damningly when he inhaled what he immediately recognized as the faint muskiness of skin mixed with a sharper overtone of deodorant.

He lowered it and draped it over the back of the couch carefully, afraid that if he continued holding it he’d end up clinging to it like a child with a comfort object.

A soft voice in the back of his mind that sounded an awful lot like Mikasa murmured that he’d just done something creepy.

“I know,” he whispered back, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. “I know, shut up, I know.”

The Mikasa voice murmured that it didn’t think that was normal fanboy behaviour and that it seemed a little like he was-

He shook his head rapidly, half out of old habit and half in the hope that rattling his brain around in his skull would clear his mind of unwelcome thoughts. All it succeeded in doing was making him vaguely dizzy and slightly nauseous.

He staggered around the side of the couch towards the hallway.

It had been his intention to use the bathroom- he was becoming increasingly aware of an uncomfortable pressure in his bladder- but he slowed as he passed a door left ajar and found himself stopping just beyond it, lower lip pinched beneath his teeth and eyebrows furrowed.

He didn’t need the Mikasa voice to tell him what he knew.

“This is creepy, Eren,” he seethed at himself as he turned around and peered in curiously.

For a second he was assaulted with a mixture of relief and disappointment- there was nothing but a tangle of sheets and blankets in the centre of the bed.

A moment later he realized that tangle was moving, very slowly and almost imperceptibly rising and falling in a familiar rhythm.

He leaned his head against the door jamb and stared to be sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, caught between self-censure and incredible curiosity.

He found himself creeping into the room without really choosing to, padding carefully around the side of the bed to get a closer look.

He crept around to the other side.

He couldn’t find a hair, a finger, a foot- it was like a cocoon of bedding. It was impossible to tell what parts of Levi were where inside it.

Eren wasn’t sure whether to laugh or stare incredulously.

He lifted an unsecured section of blanket and peered under it inquisitively. “Levi…?”

After a moment of puzzling, he identified the uncovered skin- which had begun to shift discontentedly in response to its exposure to the cold air- as a naked calf and dropped the blanket hurriedly.

“Now you know his greatest secret,” a voice said softly behind him. He bit his tongue stifling a startled yelp before whirling around.

Erwin was silhouetted by the yellow light of the bathroom. It hurt to look at him, but he sounded like he was smiling.

“Put more than a shot of alcohol into his system and you’ll find that humanity’s strongest non-super superhero sleeps curled in a little ball inside a nest of blankets,” he murmured drily.

Eren smiled uncertainly. “Is he-” he started, glancing behind him before realizing that he hadn’t gotten in trouble for coming into Levi’s room yet. “Is he going to be okay under there?”

Now he _knew_ Erwin was smiling. “No,” he laughed, “he’ll wake up complaining that he’s overheated and accuse you of nearly letting him suffocate.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, concerned. “Then shouldn’t we-”

“If you disturb him now, what you’ll get instead is much worse than complaints,” Erwin told him, “he starts punching before he has a chance to wake up.”

Eren shuffled away from the bed nervously.

“…fuckin’ loud.”

He looked over, surprised. Erwin chuckled as he patted him on the shoulder. “Do me a favour and stay here with him,” he smiled, “and help yourself to anything in the kitchen.” He paused halfway through the door. “Oh, and I hope you can cook, Eren.”

Eren shot a puzzled look after him.

“Your voice is too fucking loud. Didn’t they teach you that shit about using your _inside voice_ when you were in elementary school?”

Levi was squinting at him from under a newly disentangled edge of comforter.

A section of that fine dark hair was arcing strangely away from his crown like it wanted to stand straight up but had fallen under its own weight.

Eren realized he was staring.

Levi was staring back wordlessly.

“This is… really weird,” Eren admitted.

Levi grunted noncommittally.

“I’m hungry.”

Eren just looked at him.

***

And that was how he ended up cooking his childhood hero breakfast, which was, mercifully, the only meal he trusted himself to cook reliably.

When Erwin cheerfully informed him that by actually _cooking_ instead of reheating something frozen, he’d doomed himself to- and freed Erwin from, he was later inclined to suspect- an endless future of continuing to cook for Levi, he laughed because he thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

Only a few of Armin’s grandfather’s many sayings had penetrated deeply enough for Eren to remember.

“Give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile, Eren,” was one, but only because he’d never quite understood what it meant.

When Levi- who usually slept during the day due to the nature of his work- began to respond to Eren’s presence in the early evening with an expectant look, he finally understood.

When Armin asked what had brought about his sudden interest in improving his culinary abilities about a week later, he didn’t know how to respond.

All he was able to hear was Armin’s grandfather’s voice saying,

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,”

and something about it made him very uncomfortable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains a little violence and Eren being the most metal fucking fanboy. 
> 
> Talk about goddamn dedication. (Because people need to reference Eren's amazing ability to lie more often.)
> 
> Also contains Armin Arlert. Hello, Armin!

It wasn’t until a blissful- and incredibly indulgent- month and a half later that anything of note happened.

At fifteen minutes past one in the morning on a Thursday, Levi slipped in through the window with one arm held away from his body and a length of thin rubber tubing tied tightly around his bicep.

It was surprising that Eren was there at all- he usually came to Erwin’s home closer to three or four, just before Levi’s typical hour of return, but today he had decided he wanted to attempt cooking something more time and labour-intensive than Levi’s usual fare.

It was entirely coincidental, which was peculiar, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

“What’s wrong with your _arm?”_ he choked, fascinated and terrified.

Levi shot him a scathing look that faltered catastrophically when he flinched.

Whatever it was, Eren realized with a thrill of horror, it was hurting him.

“Don’t touch it,” Levi snapped as he approached him. “I don’t think it spreads by skin contact but I’m not exactly in a fucking hurry to find out.”

The trapped blood pooling beneath the skin of his forearm was pulsing with dim light in a pattern of blues and purples that would have been mesmerizing, even beautiful, under different circumstances.

As it was, Eren was speechless.  “Artifact?” he questioned stupidly, at a loss for anything else to say.

Levi grunted in confirmation, collapsing into an armchair with his arm still held aloft. “Oi, hurry up and-”

“That doesn’t look good.”

Eren sagged with relief at the sound of Erwin’s voice, turning to him with desperate eyes.

“No fucking shit it doesn’t look good,” Levi snarled. “My arm isn’t supposed to be putting on a goddamn lightshow- this shit spread from my hand to my elbow in under a minute, Erwin. Call Hanji.”

Eren really didn’t like the soft, apologetic smile Erwin responded to that with.

“Hanji’s gone underground to work on something. Even if I can contact them, they won’t be in the city.”

Eren stomach sank.

“ _Shit_.” Levi sounded more panicked than angry. “Shit, shit, _shit_ \- fuck, should we try to bleed it out? But I don’t know what it’s gonna do if I let it out again- it fucking _leapt_ at me, Erwin, it went for my _face-_ ”

A face was flashing in his mind.

He swallowed dryness and backed out of the living room as stealthily as he could.

He closed the bathroom door behind him and took a deep breath.

It was with shaking fingers that he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed.

“Please be awake,” he whispered. It was a conflicted prayer that was answered when the receiver clicked and the ringing stopped. “Armin, I need your help,” he begged. “Please tell me you’re on your campus right now and didn’t just wake up.”

“Eren? What’s going on?” Armin sounded alert, not at all like he’d just awoken, and Eren sagged onto the toilet, too relieved for work. “Why are you asking if I’m on campus? Where are you?”

He gave him Erwin’s apartment number without telling him why. “I need you here, Armin, you’re the only one I can think of that’ll know what to do.”

Armin hummed. Eren could already hear him shuffling papers together hastily. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Stay calm.”

The click of the call disconnecting was deafening.

He sat on the toilet with his phone in his hand and his lip between his teeth for what felt like hours.

“Kid, what’re you-”

Levi’s eyes fell to the cellphone cradled in his palm. His expression turned sour in a way he’d dreaded it would.

“What did you do?” he asked quietly. Every word felt deadly.

“Help is coming,” Eren told him firmly. His expression worsened.

“Please tell you didn’t fucking call an ambulance-” he growled.

Eren expected more, but they were both interrupted by a light knocking on the door that somehow seemed deafeningly loud.

Levi’s eyes accused him of a betrayal that made his heart feel like it was sinking to somewhere around his liver.

“Eren?” a soft voice called.

“In here,” he called back, still holding Levi’s damning gaze.

He saw Armin stop, eyes flickering over Levi’s still-cloaked back, down to Levi’s softly glowing forearm, and up to Eren’s eyes.

His expression was one of ultimate exasperation. “Eren,” he sighed, “you have the most amazing gift for finding trouble.”

Levi’s eyes were boring holes in him. “Whoever’s behind me better have something useful to say before I turn around and get a good look at him,” he menaced.

Eren shot Armin a pleading look.

Armin’s hand calmly blocked the turning path of Levi’s shoulder as he peered down at the arm below it. “Hold still, please,” he instructed politely and then hummed, eyebrows knitting. “Definitely the result of an artifact. Judging by the colour pattern…”

He said something that Eren knew better than to claim was Latin because Armin would inevitably correct him by saying it was Mesopotamian or Gaelic or god knows what else.

Levi just grunted, craning to look over his shoulder at him. “I don’t know what the fuck you just said, but I don’t fucking care anyway, so don’t even try it- tell me you can fix this.”

Armin sighed, tucking a stray piece of golden blond hair over his ear. “I can fix this,” he said confidently.

***

“So you’re Armin,” Levi mused. “When were you planning on telling me that your best friend was an expert in the arcane, Eren?”

Eren shuffled his feet, turning the narrow blade of the carving knife over the thin blue flame flickering through the coiled metal of the stovetop element restlessly as Erwin handed Armin the bottle of vodka he’d fetched from under the sink. “When it came up,” he answered evasively. Levi rolled his eyes and then scowled as he watched Armin pour the entire bottle of vodka into the bucket of salt water he had his arm submerged in.

“Is that really necessary?” he groused.

Armin sighed lightly through his nose, something he’d been doing quite a lot of. “Yes,” he explained patiently, “the salt and the alcohol make the water a better medium for drawing out and containing the artifact’s energy- it’s drawn to heat, which is why it’s been trying to force its way up your arm and into your core.” He recapped the vodka bottle needlessly. “When I submerge the knife, the heat will attract it, but it won’t be able to absorb itself into the steel the same way it penetrated your skin through your suit. All we’ll have to do afterwards is seal the drum and ensure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Erwin was looking at Armin with some interest. He’d been disconcertingly quiet throughout the entire process. Eren didn’t like it. He almost burned himself against the element, hand slipping lower for a moment before jerking back up. The blade was starting to turn a dull red.

“How did you come into contact with this, anyway?” Armin sounded genuinely curious.

Levi just sounded grumpy. “One of the shithead thieves I was pursuing dropped it. I didn’t even have time to decide if it was something he’d stolen or something dangerous before it came flying up at my goddamn face.”

Armin hummed thoughtfully. “Eren, the knife?”

Eren handed it to him obediently, careful not to burn himself or Armin while he passed it over.

Armin inhaled deeply through his nose. “Eren,” he started again, “would you mind taking his other hand, please?”

He only hesitated for a second before complying a little bashfully, confused but accustomed enough to Armin’s ways not to question his methods. Levi looked down at their joined palms with some amusement.

He understood a moment later when Levi’s grip tightened crushingly around his own, jerking upwards. He grabbed Levi’s wrist with his free hand, flinching as the bones of his knuckles ground together.

Levi’s yell of shock and pain was loud enough to make even Erwin close his eyes with a grimace.

Armin held the flat of the cooling blade against the submerged skin of Levi’s forearm, his own braced against Levi’s chest to stop him from surging forward.

Even from where he was sitting- and through the tears of pain in his eyes that had sprung up in response to the bone-deep ache of Levi’s crushingly tight grip- Eren could see blue and purple bleeding out from under the dull red edges of the knife.

The diffuse glow of it as it curled out into the water reminded him strangely of broken glow sticks.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Levi barked, leaning forward heavily against Armin’s bracing arm, which began to shake with the strain of holding him back. “You said you were gonna dunk it in the water, not _fucking burn me with it,_ Jesus-”

“You wouldn’t,” Armin panted, “have agreed to do it if I had-”

“ _No fucking shit-_ ”

Erwin leaned over him and placed his hands on Levi’s shoulders, shoving him back into his chair, and Armin let out a grateful groan as his shaking arm fell away from Levi’s chest. “Just a little longer- _there._ On three-”

He drew the knife from the water sharply, making sure it left it just as Levi’s arm did, and scrambled to cover the bucket.

The sound of the lid snapping into place made Eren sigh with relief. His hand had gone numb. “Levi?” he ventured, tugging experimentally against his grip.

Levi had his burned arm cradled against his legs and his chin tucked to his chest, teeth bared and jaw tight, but his white-knuckled grip loosened finger-by-finger until Eren was free.

Eren rubbed his aching hand gently, feeling something pop back into place as he gingerly spread his fingers.

Levi only made it to the point of not looking at Armin like he wanted to kill him and answering Eren’s concerned questions in more than monosyllabic, curse-filled grunts before someone knocked on the door again.

They all stilled.

 _“This is the police, open up,”_ a muffled voice rang out from the hallway.

“Fuck,” Levi whispered desperately beside him.

Eren thought about Levi’s yell.

Eren thought about what would happen if they recognized him.

Eren looked at Armin’s tense expression of desperate calculation and took the now-cool knife from his hand before he could respond.

There was a collective hiss of shock when he drew it across and down his arm in a sharp diagonal slash before grabbing the dish towel from over the sink and pressing it hard against the fresh wound.

He walked to the door and opened it clumsily with his elbow, slipping into a familiar state of trance-like vagueness.

“I’m sorry, officers,” he greeted, toeing the door open a crack, fighting not to furrow his eyebrows. “What seems to be the problem?”

They were a pair of men in their mid-thirties, polished but not especially alert looking. One had visible bags under his eyes. “We received several calls from your neighbours. They said they heard screaming from this apartment.” Their eyes flickered over his face suspiciously.

He elbowed the door open more fully, smiling sheepishly at them as their eyes fell to the reddening towel he had pressed against his arm.

“I’m sorry,” he lied fluidly, “that was me. I had an accident in the kitchen.”

The one on the left looked like he was contemplating asking what Eren was doing playing with knives at two in the morning, but he swayed exhaustedly on his feet and appeared to think better of it. “Do you need us to call for medical assistance, sir?”

He smiled wanly and shook his head, peeling back the towel to demonstrate. “It’s fairly shallow- I don’t think it’ll even need stitches,” he assured them. “I’m just waiting for the bleeding to slow so I can clean and dress it properly.”

The one on the right scrutinized his face with more alertness than his partner had, lingering quietly before leaning slightly to the side to peer into the apartment behind him.

Eren watched his eyes take stock of the clean room and undisturbed furniture and saw the moment where he reluctantly decided that Eren was not a thief or murderer covering up his crimes.

“You’re sure you don’t need a paramedic?” he asked again, and Eren confirmed that he did not.

He closed the door after them with a sigh and decided not to turn around just yet.

“Don’t tell Mikasa,” he begged the door, and Armin sighed somewhere behind him.

“What, afraid your sister’ll kill you for pulling a stunt like that?” Levi voice drawled. Eren caught an edge to it that he didn’t know how to interpret.

“No,” Armin corrected quietly, “she’ll kill _you_ because you’re the one that Eren did it for.”

Eren leaned his forehead against the door and closed his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What pacing? Naaah.

True to his word- however begrudgingly given- Armin didn’t tell Mikasa, and Eren’s life settled back into its former rhythm with surprising ease.

He couldn’t help feeling that something had changed irrevocably, though.

He sometimes caught Levi staring at him, arms crossed across his chest and lips drawn into a line that could only be called contemplative.

It wasn’t the only thing that Levi had begun to do.

Eren felt, at moments, like the owner of a cat.

He looked down at the quickly-healing scar on his forearm, thought of the still-livid burn on Levi’s, and wondered if in that moment Levi had somehow decided that Eren was _his_ , because like a cat, he had stopped treating Eren like a vehicle for the delivery of food that deserved to be humoured for his trouble once in a while- and only when Levi felt like it- and begun treating him like a-

Eren wasn’t even sure what to call it. There didn’t seem to be an easily accessible word for the role he’d taken up in Levi’s life- two parts private cook, one part personal assistant, one part companion, all of it sprinkled with a liberal dose of sullen possessiveness- but whatever it was, thinking about it for too long made his stomach take up an interest in uncomfortable acrobatics.

Instead he just rolled with it, telling himself that Levi’s attentions were probably temporary and the result of his fickle nature, which worked well enough to settle his flipping guts into something closer to dejected heaviness.

He responded to Armin’s texts more promptly than he ever had and was careful to keep his face clean of conflict when Armin brought Levi up in conversation, though he suspected Armin had seen already.

The days of the next two months of his life passed in a series of humorous vignettes- Levi’s bedhead, Levi eating bacon, Levi staring discontentedly down at the many straps of his uniform, Levi looking up at him expectantly, Levi sassing him- _“Oi, don’t even think of trying to cop a feel while you’re down there, brat”_ -while Eren did up his thigh straps, scarlet-faced but laughing.

His scar faded into near-invisibility, just a thin white line against olive skin, while Levi’s turned from red to pink.

He massaged oil into it to promote better healing, but at Levi’s age the skin had already lost the ability to recover completely from even so superficial a burn.

One morning while he was doing it, dedicating his full attention to the task at hand with a quiet intensity of focus Armin had always told him would either kill him or save his life one day, he didn’t notice when Levi had finished his clumsy one-handed breakfast beside him.

The cool, still-gloved fingers of Levi’s other hand closing around his left wrist came as a complete surprise, and he jerked against his grip instinctively.

Levi just tugged his arm over his knees and frowned down at it.

“I can barely tell you were even cut,” he commented. It sounded like a complaint. Eren wasn’t sure how to feel like that.

“I heal quickly,” he responded apologetically, shrugging. “And my skin is darker than yours- I tend to scar white, not red.”

Levi grunted in a way that Eren decided might’ve been a little jealous. He tugged their arms side-by-side.

Eren looked at the tightly corded muscle of Levi’s still-glistening forearm beside the softer, meatier flesh of his own and felt a little insignificant.

A moment later, Levi released his wrist to wordlessly fumble with his harness, which he recognized as being as much a demand as it was a request. Eren immediately squatted in front of him to assist, releasing the buckle across his chest and the ones under his arms before indulgently allowing himself to smooth the straps off of his shoulders so they could fall free into his lap and the chair behind him.

Levi was watching him do it, mouth drawn in that contemplative line again.

He unbuckled Levi’s belt and was halfway through freeing one of his thigh when Levi spoke.

“If I were ever to come onto you,” he said, almost conversationally, “would you flip your shit and stop coming around?”

Eren barely noticed his fingers stilling, too busy staring blankly at Levi’s thigh as a wave of heat swept up into his face. His heart was suddenly hammering in his ears like jarring horror movie music.

“It’s not just because you’re the only person I see other than Erwin,” he continued in a mutter, and then fell silent.

Eren knew he should say something, but his mind had gone unhelpfully blank with shock.

Levi’s thigh shifted under his hand. “…Forget it. It was just a hypothetical question.”

Eren felt rather than saw him look away towards the window, and a raspy noise of bewilderment escaped his mouth unbidden, taking his speechlessness with it.

“I don’t understand.”

Levi blinked and looked back down at him, visibly nonplussed. “What’s there not to understand? Look, just forget-”

“Why _me?”_ he asked, searching Levi’s face for answers. “You’re a public hero- I mean, there are so many other people who’d- I just- I’m mean, I’m _hardly_ \- I don’t understand.”

Levi’s face went blank. “Eren, exactly how do you think vigilantism _works?”_ he demanded, thin eyebrows drawing together incredulously. “Contrary to popular belief, my life is not a superhero movie. I don’t exactly get out much and the people I save from muggers aren’t typically in the fucking mood to-” He struggled for a moment, closing his eyes. “Fuck off, it was a yes or no question.”

“Uh,” Eren responded intelligently. “Can you repeat the question?”

Levi stared at him long enough that Eren managed to squirm his way through the rest of unbuckling Levi’s thigh straps.

“Do you,” he enunciated carefully, “or do you not find the idea of my coming onto you repulsive?”

Eren’s legs had begun to ache from squatting for so long. “That’s not a yes or no question,” he pointed out.

The gaze on him turned from exasperated to one of genuine frustration. “Look, you little shit, all you have to do is say _no_ if you don’t want me trying to feel up your ass, this is getting fucking stupid,” he snapped.

“But what do I say if I don’t _not_ want you trying to feel up my ass?” Eren asked him desperately, cringing when Levi ground the heels of his palms into his eyes with a strangled groan of displeasure.

“Then you don’t have to say _shit_ , just get the fuck up here and prove to me that you’re not just going along with I want because of your shitty hero worship,” he growled, spurring Eren to his feet.

He hesitated there, unsure what to do. Levi was looking past him with a sort of exhausted petulance, slouching in his chair.

“If you have to freak out about it, at least find somebody else who can cook to replace you,” Levi told him sullenly without meeting his eyes.

Some naïve remnant of childishness snapped in Eren’s psyche and all at once he looked at Levi and saw a person entirely separate from the image he’d been cultivated into- it was a revelation he’d been struggling with since meeting him, trying to reconcile the clippings on his walls and the unauthorized merchandise sold on the internet with the man who slipped in through the front door or living room window just before the sun rose and demanded breakfast. He’d been trying and failing for months to identify what it was the connected the Levi who removed his gear piece by painstaking piece after he’d eaten and the Levi who always brushed his teeth and showered before he slept no matter how exhausted he obviously was with the Clean who fought for the safety of his city in the dead of the night.

And he’d finally found what it was- it was that it _wasn’t_.

He’d been looking at Levi like he was the Clark Kent to Clean’s Superman, like the man who came home at night was the alter ego, and that wasn’t the case at all.

All at once, he discovered something else.

He didn’t feel even slightly disappointed by the realization that his hero wasn’t perfect. The recognition that both Levi’s tremendous capacity for self-control and his seemingly incongruous bouts of selfish behaviour were his own and not affectations made him seem more immediate, more real than he ever had, and Eren struggled to bite back an ill-timed smile.

Levi was staring moodily out of the living room window, washed in the warming colours of the rising sun, and the fact that he was quite clearly sulking over his perceived rejection utterly ruined what would have been an untouchably heroic image in his Eren’s eyes just minutes before.

Eren couldn’t help it.

He laughed.

Levi turned his glower back to Eren. “What, now I’m funny?”

Eren leaned forward cautiously, still nervous but less baffled and overwhelmed. “A little,” he admitted.

Levi quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I’m not very good at this,” Eren apologized, shuffling a little closer and scratching restlessly at the nape of his neck when Levi narrowed his eyes.

“I can see that.”

“So, what do I-” he started, and then stopped, fidgeting. “Can I kiss you?”

Levi’s expression turned from surprised to incredibly amused in a matter of seconds. “I don’t know, can you?”

It took a beat of silence for Eren to get it. He rolled his eyes when he did. “Is this a grammar lesson now?”

“Actually, that was an invitation to find out,” Levi said sourly, “but full marks for making me feel like a creepy high school teacher.”

Eren laughed. He was still murmuring an apology when he rested his arm against the back of the chair and leaned in.

It wasn’t as though this was the first time he had done this- he wasn’t an unattractive guy and he knew it. He was generally normal and easy enough to get along with until Clean came up in conversation or something pushed him beyond the limits of his patience. He’d been told by a number of hopeful- and later, disappointed- employers that he had a certain charisma.

This was far from the first time he had ventured into unprofessional territory with someone who was technically his co-worker.

But as human as he was, Levi was still much more intimidating a partner than someone he worked the closing shift with at a coffee shop or one of the deli workers at the supermarket.

He was still responsible for and capable of everything he had done as Clean, still densely built beneath the tight, dark fabric of his uniform, muscles hardened by years of exertion, still looking up at him impatiently as he wavered shyly over him.

“For fuck’s sakes,” Levi muttered and tugged him down by the collar of his shirt.

His lips were dry and his clothes smelled like cigarette ash and the distinctive aroma of wet city backstreets, but the kiss was reassuringly chaste for being so firm and sure. Eren leaned into it, breathing deeply through his nose and trying to move responsively rather than aggressively.

It was slow, almost a little lazy, but he started to lose himself in it nonetheless, holding back the urge to lick at the seam of those dry lips experimentally, and he barely even noticed when Levi’s hand crept from where it had been fisted in his collar to around the back of his neck.

“Are you leaving room for Jesus?” Eren felt him mutter against his mouth, “I feel like I’m at a middle school dance and you’re worried a teacher’s gonna come over if you get any closer.”

Eren couldn’t help the bark of startled laughter that escaped him. “Wha- wait, did you go to a Catholic school?”

“Every school is Catholic school where I’m from, regardless of whether or not they say it is,” he groused. He cut off Eren’s questioning look with a curt, “are you going to get down here or not? My neck is killing me.”

Eren snorted as he placed first one knee, and then the other, on either side of Levi’s hips, nudging the coiled harness back so he wouldn’t trap it beneath him. He hesitated like that, fingers digging into the back of the armchair to hold himself up in a half-squat.

Levi rested his hands lightly on his straining thighs, one eyebrow raised. Eren smiled uncertainly at him.

He sighed again and pressed down hard enough that Eren collapsed into a sitting position, knees popping up as he scrambled to maintain his balance.

“You’re not going to crush me,” Levi told him drily, nosing at him to get his attention and kissing him again.

His hands wandered up Eren’s sides in a way that was more appraising than demanding. Eren felt the tip of his tongue flicker out inquisitively. His shoulders were hard and warm under Eren’s palms.

He could feel his body reacting in a way that their current position made rather difficult to overlook and begged it not to.

The heat had resurfaced in Eren’s face with full force.

He felt Levi smile against his lips. “You look like you need to take a shit.”

Eren pulled back and just looked at him. “You still talk like that when you’re doing this stuff,” he marvelled. He’d intended it to be a question. It didn’t come out sounding like one.

“Talk like what?” Levi asked him. He looked genuinely confused.

Eren leaned his forehead against Levi’s shoulder and laughed.

***

They managed to keep their evolving relationship from Erwin approximately until Erwin returned home from work, puzzled as to what had happened to stop Eren from coming in after Levi fell asleep as he was accustomed to.

The answer to that, of course, was also the first reason why they were discovered so quickly: Eren and Levi had spent an inadvisable amount of time just screwing around and the only sleep Levi had gotten had been in the form of a three-hour nap he’d taken after falling asleep with his head on Eren’s lap.

Eren had woken him up to go to the bathroom.

Levi looked like shit.

The second reason, of course, was that Levi had apparently never had any idea of keeping his relationship to Eren a secret as Eren had assumed he had.

When Erwin had walked in, he’d responded to Erwin’s concern with the truth, in no uncertain- and rather rude- terms.

Erwin had just looked at them.

“I’ll admit I didn’t account for this possibility,” he commented.

His eyes wandered from Eren’s sheepish smile to Levi’s bruise-like under eye circles before closing under heavy eyebrows pulled together with concern.

“Please tell me,” he sighed, “that this is not going to affect your work.”

And in that moment, Eren felt that he understood Erwin Smith better than he ever had before.


End file.
